A Shop in its Last Days

The dust settled,
On the forlorn shelves,
Decorated with jars of glass,
Filled with wonders unknown,
And wrinkled magazines,
Lay still in their racks,
Rotten, forgotten,
The greasy walls-ancient,
With a stench of death,
The creeky floorboard,
Not waxed, splintered,
The smoothened counter,
Saw no more clanking coins
Or wrinkly bills,
But only the occasional mop,
The bell that hung on the doorstep,
Clung twice a day, and never else,
Suspended in air, still,
A ceiling fan, rusty,
Revolved, solemnly,
The unremitting kettle whistled,
Whiffs of cheap rationed tea,
An againg face stared,
At tiny prints of ink,
On sheets of the newspaper,
With jades eyes,
Away from the stack of bills,
Occasionally staring at a passerby,
With a hat and a walking stick,
Reality fades into oblivion,
The shop is a curated oddity,
In the amber of time,
A block of soup boullion,
An aspiced corpse,
A piece on the gallery wall,
But forgotten like burried hay.
-S.